Establishment and characterization of cell line SFCC from clear cell adenocarcinoma of the uterine cervix

Abstract

A human cervical clear cell adenocarcinoma cell line was established and named SFCC. The tumor cells were obtained from ascites of a 39-year-old woman who underwent a radical hysterectomy. She had no history of exposure to diethylstilbestrol (DES). The histologic feature of the tumor cells at autopsy showed abundant clear cytoplasm with diastase digested glycogen granule growing in solid nest and tubular pattern. SFCC cells were continuously propagated in vitro during the past 29 months and grown in a monolayered sheet with a doubling time of about 67 hours. SFCC cells resembled the structure of the original tumor and had abundant glycogen granules, lipid droplets in the cytoplasm, and numerous microvilli. Immunohistochemically, SFCC cells had carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) immunoreactivity in some parts of the cell population. Moreover, they had a relatively high amount of progesterone receptor (20.0 fmol/mg protein; kd, 6.6 nM) but did not have either an estrogen receptor or EGF receptor. The SFCC cell line secreted a high content of tissue peptide antigen (TPA) into the medium, indicating that the SFCC cell line is useful for analyzing the progesterone receptor and TPA production in clear cell adenocarcinoma of uterine cervix.